Saturday, March 31, 2007

Additional Season 3 Promo Photos

Thanks to Lyly here are some promo photos that I'd not seed before.

Exposé - Water Cooler Moments

Thanks to Sawyer840 for the video from ABC.

Kiele Sanchez on Kimmel

Thanks to Jay for this video.

The Season 3 Episode League Table

Here is the updated League table to include Exposé.

Note: Exposé is currently the most voted for episode ever with over 4,600 votes to date.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Lost Exposed by J.Wood

Another indepth review of Exposé by the always interesting J.Wood.



Things I Noticed - "Exposé" by Vozzek69

Expose' was a very strange episode - half murder mystery, half 'The Other 48 Days'. I liked parts of it and disliked others. It seemed to create questions that no one really asked (such as what Paulo was doing in the bathroom of the Pearl hatch), then went on to answer those questions all at once. Here are the Things I Noticed:

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Lost Boss Explains Last Night's Double Demise

That the producers decided to kill off much-maligned castaways Nikki and Paolo on this week's episode may not have been a shock to fans. But how the greedy, murderous pair died provided one of the biggest twists — and thrills — of the season. (After being paralyzed by spider bites, the not-so-dynamic duo were buried alive — albeit unwittingly — by Sawyer and Hurley.) "People hated them before they even opened their mouths to say anything significant because it felt like they were crashing the party," exec producer Damon Lindelof acknowledges of the characters who were abruptly introduced last fall. "The easiest thing would have been to just write them out and forget they ever happened, like the cougar on [Season 2] of 24. But that's not Lost. We should at least own up to it."

Kiele Sanchez wasn't bothered by the criticism directed at Nikki and reveled in going out with a bang, yet wasn't too crazy about filming the burial scene: "I am horribly claustrophobic — I can't even have a blanket over my face — so I didn't have to do a lot of acting. I was genuinely terrified." — Reporting by Shawna Malcom

Source: TV Guide

Exposé - Previously on Lost

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

TV Guide Scan

TV Q&A: ‘LOST’—JACK BENDER

Thanks to Andreas over at the Lost Blog for finding this very interesting interview with Jack Bender. Here is a small snippet from a much longer article which you can read in full at the link below.

We’ve heard that next year you guys will have a later kickoff in the season to help wrangle some of the scheduling problems early on.

BENDER: That’s the word. Although we haven’t heard officially, the word is it’s going to be more in the formula of “24” and those shows where we come on later and we’re on straight through because everyone was so pissed off that it happened like it did last year. I have to say that our first few episodes…look, any show where you’re doing 23 episodes, it’s difficult to keep the bar as high as we keep it on every single episode, and certain episodes will satisfy the mythology sci-fi people and certain episodes, like the Hurley episode that was just on, will satisfy the feel-good people who just want our people back on the beach triumphant. So every episode isn’t going to satisfy everyone, but in order to keep the bar up, we certainly feel like the episodes this year have been good, even though the rap critically was that they were inconsistent, the first six.

I think one of the reasons we ended up getting hit with that was that a lot of it was the fact that we only had six and then we were off, which meant they could only look at those six. So there is no question that that idea was not a great idea. The network, ABC and other networks are scrambling these days, I think, figuring out how to keep their audience, how to keep the television business going because these shows are expensive. And even though they sell worldwide and we’re the biggest show in the world in terms of worldwide sales and all of that, they no longer have to wait for a hundred episodes to syndicate. But it’s still the network game and advertisers and ratings and the demographics still kind of rule everything.

So next year…that was a long way of saying that the plan next year is for us to come on later and to go straight through, and I think that’ll be probably good for everybody.

Source: Wizard Entertainment - Full Article

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

DarkUFO Widgets for your website

Here are 3 Widgets that will allow you to put the Latest News, Spoilers and Screencaps on your own site, blog, Myspace page etc. If you would like any other widgets created from the site please email me or leave a comment.

Spoilers
Get this widget from Widgetbox
Latest News
Get this widget from Widgetbox
Screencaps
Get this widget from Widgetbox

Monday, March 26, 2007

Sky One Podcast for The Man from Tallahassee

Rodrigo Santoro in Star Magazine

LOST: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE #10

Thanks to Lyly for the scan.

TV’s hottest couple are Lost Magazine’s cover stars this issue as Evangeline Lilly and Josh Holloway talk romance, Season 3, and beyond! The writers reveal their plans for the shocking Season 3 finale, and co-creator Damon Lindelof answers fan questions. Plus, order the Previews exclusive cover before they are "lost" forever!
Amazon

Source: Lost Official Magazine

Lost gets a new Dog - Meet Pono

Pono, a yellow Labrador retriever who spends much of his time in the Diamond Head area and on the waves off Waikiki, is about to become a star. But it's not likely to affect his already comfortable life.

The 22-month-old dog will be featured in flashback scenes in Wednesday's episode of "Lost," according to his owner, Virginio "Marcus" Marcos.

Marcos proudly reported that Pono completed all of his scenes in one or two takes, with little effort. Members of the crew erupted in cheers when Pono finished his tasks successfully. And of course, everyone loved him. "He's like this ambassador of aloha," said Marcos.

No wonder. At Marcos' Diamond Head Cove Health Bar, Pono greets everyone who walks in and is especially fond of -- and patient with -- children. He also happens to be an excellent surfer, taking to the waves on Marcos' 12-foot-6 board.

Marcos keeps the board leash tied to Pono's harness, but both have their limits. "If we eat it three times real good, then we go in," said Marcos, who wants to make sure Pono always feels comfortable in the ocean.

Because the dog weighs 90 pounds, Marcos usually encourages Pono to swim next to the board all the way to the beach after a surf session.

Pono also has considerable math skills, which he was happy to show off last week (for a treat, of course).

Marcos wrote 12 divided by 3 on a piece of paper and held it in front of Pono, who promptly barked four times. Marcos also hid a pen, water bottle and towel, then asked Pono to retrieve them one at a time, by name. Then he wrote out the word "Kamehameha," and asked Pono how many letters were in the word. Tail wagging, Pono barked 10 times.

Apparently, the folks at "Lost" enjoy the Health Bar's wholesome fare, and that's where they discovered Pono. Though Marcos could not reveal any plot lines, he hinted that Pono might be asked to return.

Maybe one of these days, they'll find a role for Pono's little buddy and constant companion, a chocolate Lab puppy named Hone.

Source: Star Bulletin

Sunday, March 25, 2007

New Lost clip show

Thanks to ChristaMC for the info here about a new Lost Clip show which will air before the Season 3 Finale.

“Lost: Clip Show” (working title) is scheduled to air as a one time only telecast on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 in the 8:00 - 9:00 PM ET/PT time period.

8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern/Pacific
7:00 - 8:00 PM Central

Source: ABC

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Taking everything at face value

UPDATE: 26th March - I thought it was about time I updated this.


Sometime us Lost fans are accused of reading too much into everything and always looking for the unexpected. My friend said to me to think about "Occam's Razor" - All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. So I thought OK, lets look at Lost by taking everything at face value that we "know".

So help me compile a list of things that on face value appear true.

Note: This does NOT include any spoilers or info from the Lost Promos/Trailers etc


Last Update: 26th March 2007

Friday, March 23, 2007

The Man From Tallahassee : Behind the Scenes

Originally posted in the spoilers section.

The Man From Tallahassee - Ratings

Jumping from its lead-in by 6.9 million viewers (12.0 million vs. 5.1 million) and by 136% in young adults (5.2/14 vs. 2.2/6), “Lost” won Wednesday’s 10 o’clock hour across the adult demographics. Despite CBS’ decided lead-in advantage coming into the hour from “Criminal Minds,” ABC’s “Lost” defeated CBS’ “C.S.I.: NY” by substantial margins across each of the adult demographics: AD18-34 +68% (4.7/14 vs. 2.8/8), AD18-49 +27% (5.2/14 vs. 4.1/11) and AD25-54 +10% (5.7/14 vs. 5.2/13). In fact the ABC drama has won its hour in the key Adult 18-49 sales demographic on all 7 telecasts since entering in its new time slot.

“Lost” was up from the prior week among Adults 18-34 (4.7/14 vs. 4.6/14) and Women 18-34 (5.1/14 vs. 5.0/14).

“Lost” grew the time period for ABC from the same night last year by 2.9 million viewers and 53% in Adults 18-49 (9.1 million & 3.4/9 on 3/22/06).

Source: Nielsen Media Research (Fast Affiliate Ratings)

SEZON TUMANOV - Season of the Fogs

This is something I posted a while ago but as I'm looking at books with connections/parallels to Lost I thought I would repost it.

As someone who has followed both LOST, the TV show, and LOST the internet phenomenon , it has always intrigued me when possible new influences are found by the loyal and resourceful masses. This is one that caught my eye more than most as some of the parallels are very striking.

The following book "SEZON TUMANOV", The Season of the Fogs, has been brought to the attention of various LOST fan sites and I thought it would be good to share what has been found so far.

Here are just some of the similarities.

1) A group of 14 students disappear on the planet Reana.
2) Rotanov, an inspector, who was sent to find the students, finds out that there are people living on the planet who no one knew about called "The Singularities".
3) The planet has a changeable electromagnetic field.
4) From time to time the electromagnet falls into time gaps and when it comes back to the normal time it brings something back with it.
5) Inspector Rotanov finds out that "The Singularities" were known for kidnapping kids.
6) Rotanov finds out that the planet was an alien-experiment that failed. So after the aliens left, the mechanism for time-traveling has changed the electromagnetic field of the planet.
7) On the planet they have "Seasons of Fog", The SEZON TUMANOV. These are crawling shapes of grey smokes, which are capturing the people, putting them to sleep or turning them into "The Singularities".
8) The people are protecting themselves by building underground hatches with hard doors.


You can read the book in it's full Russian here.If anyone has any further information on this book please let me know.

The Season 3 Episode League Table

As most of you are aware, after each episode we run a "What did you think of ..." Poll. I thought it would be interesting to collate all the results and to publish them as a league table. I'll be updating this table each week. So far we've had over 25,000 votes across the episodes and the rating is an average rating with Awesome = 5 and Awful= 1

Any of the results surprise you?

Locke's Unlucky Episode by J. Wood

Another indepth review of The Man from Tallahassee by the always interesting J.Wood.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Thanks to Charles for alerting me to this.

Roadside Picnic is a science fiction short novel written in 1971 by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, published in 1972 and since deemed a classic. The film Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is loosely based on the novel. The authors later wrote the novel Stalker, in turn loosely based on the film.

Aliens have visited the Earth, and departed, leaving behind a number of artifacts of their incomprehensibly advanced technology. The places where such artifacts were left behind are areas of great danger, known as "Zones." The Zones are laid out in a pattern which suggests that they resulted from the impact of an influence from space which struck repeatedly from the same direction, striking different places as the Earth rotated on its axis.

A frontier culture arises along the margins of these Zones, peopled by "stalkers" who risk their lives in illegal expeditions to recover these artifacts, which do not obey known physical laws. The most sought one, the "golden sphere", is rumored to have the power to fulfill the deepest human wishes.

The name of the novel derives from a metaphor proposed by the character Dr. Valentin Pilman, who compares the visit to a roadside picnic. After the picnickers depart, nervous animals venture forth from the adjacent forest and discover the picnic garbage: spilled motor oil, faded unknown flowers, a box of matches, a clockwork teddy bear, balloons, candy wrappers, etc. He concludes that humankind finds itself in a situation similar to that of the curious forest animals.

WIKI Entry
Amazon Entry

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Things I Noticed – "The Man From Tallahassee" by Vozzek69

Lost Horizon

I was sent some info by Erick about a film called Lost Horizon, I looked it up and discovered it was based on a novel by the same name. I was interested to see a number of resemblances between it and Lost.

Overview
Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, a utopian lamasery high in the Himalayas in Tibet, whose inhabitants enjoy longevity. Among the book's themes is the allusion of the possibility of another cataclysmic world war brewing, as indeed it was. It is said to have been inspired at least in part by accounts of travels in Tibetan borderlands, published in the National Geographic by the explorer and botanist Joseph Rock. The remote communities he visited, such as Muli, show many similarities to the fictional Shangri-La. One such town, Zhongdian, has now officially renamed itself as Shangri La (Chinese: Xianggelila) because of its claim to be the inspiration for the novel.


Story
The origin of the eleven numbered chapters of the novel is explained in a prologue and epilogue, whose narrator is a neurologist.

This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in India, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the narrator that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang [probably Chongqing], China, suffering from amnesia. Conway recovered his memory and told Rutherford his story, then slipped away again.

Rutherford wrote down Conway's story; he gives the manuscript to the neurologist, and that manuscript becomes the heart of the novel.

In May, 1931, during the British Raj, owing to a revolution, the 80 white residents of Baskul are being evacuated to Peshawur. In the airplane of the Maharajah of Chandrapore are Conway, the British consul, age 37; Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Bernard; and a British missionary, Miss Brinklow. The plane is flown instead over the mountains to Tibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which Conway knows) to seek shelter at the nearby lamasery of Shangri-La.

The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating, and bathtubs from Akron, Ohio; a large library; a grand piano; and food from the fertile valley below. Towering above is Karakal, "Blue Moon," a mountain more than 29 000 feet high.

Mallinson is keen to hire porters and leave, but Chang politely puts him off. The others eventually decide they are content to stay: Miss Brinklow, to teach the people a sense of sin; Bernard, because he is really Chalmers Bryant, wanted by the police for stock fraud, and because he is keen to develop the gold-mines in the valley; Conway, because the contemplative scholarly life suits him.

Conway is given an audience with the High Lama, an unheard-of honor. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Jesuit named Perrault from Luxembourg, in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging slows; if they then leave the valley, they will age quickly, and die. The High Lama is Perrault.

A seemingly young Manchu woman, Lo-Tsen, is another postulant at the lamasery; she does not speak English, but plays the piano. Conway and Mallinson fall in love with her.

In a later audience, the High Lama says that he is finally dying, and that he wants Conway to lead the lamasery. Meanwhile, Mallinson has arranged to leave the valley with porters, and Lo-Tsen, who are five miles outside. He cannot travel the dangerous five miles by himself. Conway agrees to go along.

Source: WikiPedia

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Man from Tallahassee - Key Moments

LOST Season 4 confirmed

Good news for the fans, bad news for all the dolts who thought Lost was getting cancelled. Thanks to t_fremming for the heads up.

ABC Television Network today announced fourteen early pick-ups for the 2007-08 season for new breakout series Brothers & Sisters, Men In Trees, and Ugly Betty, as well as returning hits The Bachelor, Boston Legal, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Grey's Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Lost. The announcement was made by ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson at the March Development Meeting in Los Angeles. These series join previously announced America's Funniest Home Videos, Supernanny and Wife Swap, which have also been renewed for the 2007-08 season.

Source: ABC

The Hugo Cup - Vote for DarkUFO

Some kind soul has entered my site into the Hugo Cup, an awards for LOST Web sites.

If you like my site and can spare 2 mins please consider giving me a vote :)

http://www.execute.tv/index/week/&category=HugoCup

Cheers

New Media Mentions Section launched

I'm pleased to announce that I've just opened up a new Media Mentions section of the site. in which we will try to post new and interesting Lost related content from magazine and online sources. This part of the site is run by myself along with my team of Lyly Ford and Sawyer840. If you would like to join the Media gathering team just send me an email darkufo@ntlworld.com.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Latest Ratings show LOST is Found

Nice little article written by my friend Jon Lachonis from BuddyTV and The Tailsection.

Ever since LOST returned an hour later, a move ABC knew would result in a ratings decline (how couldn't they?), the internet has been on fire with journalists and bloggers using the show's title to denote its status. It has been plain fashionable to bash LOST, everyone from major newspapers to respected online e-zines like Zap2it have gotten into the ring to take a few wild swings at the show that once dominated like no other. There is just one thing wrong with the logic, and I'm repeating myself here for very good reason. ABC knew LOST would lose viewers with the time slot change, but it just didn't matter.

Despite the loss of around four-million hard core viewers that found the new time slot to be a little too late for them, LOST has brought more new viewers to the Wednesday 10pm est time slot than any other show of recent memory. Forget CSI. I said 'new' viewers, and for those keeping score LOST finally succeeded in beating CSI to dominate 10pm both in viewers and adults with last weeks 'Par Avion'.

The reason most of these LOST bashing articles use to spread woe are pretty much taken from the same list of erroneous talking points. Fans are frustrated with the lack of answers. The story is progressing too slowly. Like, okay, who else is having trouble keeping up this season? We got our first look inside two of the others compounds, we got even further into the damaged psyches of our beloved characters. We found out that the others had off island communication up until Desmond turned his little key, proven by the video tape Ben showed Jack. We know that Desmond traveled back in time, the others have a submarine, there are two islands, Sawyer has a kid, Kate digs sawyer, the others use brainwashing to keep their dissidents in line... holy brain cramp. And there's more! Heck, this week we will finally know how John Locke wound up in the wheel chair.
Oh, island mysteries. You want to know about that? Where they are, what healed Locke, etc? Wake up knuckle head, that would end the show! Some of us, around 13-14 million at last count, still want LOST to continue serving its special brand of story telling for a few more seasons.

The bottom line is, LOST has continued to grow its audience since returning in its new time slot and is filling it with a distinctive demographic that advertisers crave to reach. So despite the malcontent murmurs of LOST's imminent demise... LOST is doing just fine.

Source: Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer